author
Richard Lorenz
1863–1929
Austrian chemist Richard Lorenz helped shape early physical chemistry and electrochemistry, building a career that took him from Vienna and Jena to Zurich and Frankfurt. He also wrote and edited widely, making complex scientific work more accessible to other researchers.
1 Audiobook
International Language and Science Considerations on the Introduction of an International Language into Science
by Leopold Pfaundler von Hadermur, Louis Couturat, Otto Jespersen, Richard Lorenz, Wilhelm Ostwald
About the author
Born in Vienna in 1863, Richard Lorenz studied at the Universities of Vienna and Jena and earned his doctorate in 1888 with research on the valence of boron. He went on to become known for work in physical chemistry and electrochemistry at a time when those fields were rapidly taking shape.
Lorenz taught at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich, where he became a professor, and later served as director of the Institute for Physical Chemistry at the University of Frankfurt. Alongside his laboratory and teaching work, he published a large number of scientific papers and edited an important journal in inorganic chemistry.
He was the son of the historian Ottokar Lorenz and remained active in science until his death in Frankfurt am Main in 1929. For listeners interested in the history of science, he stands out as one of the scholars who helped turn chemistry into a more modern, quantitative discipline.